News and views about the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 and other legislation, schemes and policies impacting the Right to Education of India's Children.

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Sunday, April 14, 2013

Class act

A student at Rani Meyammai School in Chennai learning multiplication. Photo: H.K. Rajashekar

The Panchayat Union Primary School in Kumaran Kottam village,
55 km from Coimbatore, does not fit the stereotype of the average Indian
school. It has no tables, no chairs and no regular classes. Teachers
sit on the floor. Students do likewise, in little circles. In some
rooms, students from different grades sit together. All of them are
busy. Some write on low blackboards, some draw, some use an abacus. In
one room, a puppet show exposes the pupils to mathematical tables… This
is the world of activity-based learning (ABL), an initiative that has transformed elementary education (classes I to IV) in Tamil Nadu.

ABL,
based on the pedagogical principle of learning through activity, was
launched across Tamil Nadu's 37,486 government and government-aided
schools in 2007/08. It has catapulted the state to the top of the
elementary education charts, going by surveys conducted by the National
Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

PROBLEMDespite the state government spending Rs 4,000 crore annually on
elementary education, children in Tamil Nadu were struggling to pick up
basic skills

SOLUTIONActivity-based learning, introduced across government schools, led
to academic standards rising sharply in the state. A student at Rani
Meyammai School in Chennai learning multiplication

In 2004,
Tamil Nadu's students' performance at the elementary level was below the
national average. Students in Class III scored just 53.48 per cent in
NCERT's mathematics test. In 2008, just a year after ABL was introduced,
this score jumped to 75.20 per cent - the highest in the country. The
same is the case with language (Tamil) and other subjects. All this has
been achieved with no extra budgetary support from the state.

The success
is not restricted to just academic outcomes. Surveys have found that
the children have greater self confidence, higher levels of motivation
and less fear of exams. Take the case of S. Surendar, who was in the
first standard in 2006/07. Teachers at the Rani Meyammai Primary School
in Chennai's Adyar locality were at their wits end as he constantly
cried in class and failed to master basic skills, especially in
mathematics. "ABL transformed this boy. The activities got him
interested and he began learning very quickly. Today he is in the
seventh standard and among the toppers in his class,'' says N.
Manimekalai, headmistress of the school. ABL has spawned many Surendars,
she adds.

The story was very different in 2005, when an NCERT survey left officials in Tamil Nadu's Elementary Education
Department stunned. It revealed that 65 per cent of Class V students
in government and aided schools did not have a grasp of basic
mathematical skills such as addition and subtraction. Thirty five per
cent could not read or write in their first language, Tamil. The survey
triggered some soul searching within the state government, which, back
then, spent close to Rs 4,000 crore annually on elementary education
alone. The state provided excellent school infrastructure, had enough
teachers and low student dropout/absenteeism rates. And yet, its
students were performing poorly.

For M.P. Vijayakumar, an Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer,
the findings proved to be a blessing in disguise. Serving as
Commissioner of Chennai Corporation at the time, he had designed and
implemented ABL to good effect in the 264 schools that the local body
administered. And he would spearhead its adoption and implementation in
state-run and aided schools across Tamil Nadu. "When I heard of the
government's predicament, I invited myself to the executive committee
meeting of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan - Tamil Nadu held towards the end of
2005. I convinced the committee that the classroom process was the
problem." The problem, he said, lay in the teaching method, which
focused more on rote learning (see Traditional Teaching). Vijayakumar,
who has since retired, is currently a member of the National Resource
Group of the Ministry of Human Resources and Development's Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan programme.

Vijayakumar had actually woken up to the shortcomings of the elementary education system
during a stint as Collector of Vellore District in North Tamil Nadu in
1993. The administration at the time was implementing a programme for
abolition of child labour and bonded labour - notorious in the
district's beedi factories. Officials found the 6,000 or so children
weaned out of the drudgery of beedi-making struggling to cope in
non-formal schools. These schools had been set up especially for the
children, to prepare them for a return to mainstream schooling as their
education had been disrupted. Some of the struggling students even went
back to work. This made the officials look for an alternative system of
education.

In Rishi Valley School, located in Andhra Pradesh's
Chittoor district, they found a system that was being put to effective
use among tribal children. "The basic philosophy of that system is that
children do not learn by listening alone. They also learn by doing,
experiencing and reflecting. We borrowed this idea and introduced it
into our non-formal schools,'' says Vijayakumar. Numbers, for instance,
were taught as rhymes or through activities and games. The core
philosophy was to help students act and think independently, avoid rote
learning and solve problems creatively. The children loved these methods
and were quick to learn. They began to excel in the formal schools as
well. This made the team from Tamil Nadu question the efficacy of the
formal schooling system and consider taking ABL to regular schools.

Political will was the key and successive governments backed us to the hilt: M.P. Vijayakumar

Vijayakumar
got the opportunity to implement the system in Chennai when he took
over as Commissioner of the city corporation in 2003. Teachers were sent
to Rishi Valley for training and to prepare teaching material. The
national education policy has stipulated that between classes I and IV, a
student should acquire 554 competencies, including addition,
subtraction, alphabets, forming words, and so on. These were used to
draw up various activities. To start with, ABL was piloted in 13 schools
in 2003/04. A year later, it was implemented in all the 264 Chennai
Corporation schools.

The state-wide implementation involved
37,486 schools, 140,000 teachers and three million students. "We had
picked up 10 schools in each district to start with during academic year
2006/07, but we had to train the teachers,'' recalls Vijayakumar. So, a
massive training programme was started.

Over 40,000 teachers
were brought to Chennai to train, and to watch ABL at work in the
Corporation schools. And teachers from the Corporation schools were sent
across the state to train other teachers. But implementing the system
across thousands of schools came with its share of problems. There was
resistance from some teachers, with a few complaining that they could
not sit on the floor. "It was a hassle initially. But once we understood
ABL, it gave us freedom,'' says headmistress Manimekalai. A few
parents, too, were unhappy with the new system, which was multi-grade,
had no exams and no homework. But the students enjoyed it. "Despite
facing these issues, we persevered. Political will was the key and
successive governments backed us to the hilt,'' says Vijayakumar. The
tide turned slowly and resistance evaporated.

ABL has sparked another transformation,
one that was hard to imagine until recently. It has altered the student
profile in government and aided schools, where students by and large
hail from poor families. "Almost 20 per cent of our 686 students are
from the middle class today. We are even getting students from the
nearby convents,'' says Manimekalai.

But challenges remain. A
recent NCERT study that looked into the efficacy of ABL pointed out
shortcomings in teacher training and learning material. It has also
raised safety concerns over the plastic beads used in mathematics kits.
For now ABL has become a showcase project. The Department of
International Development, UK, recently held a retreat for its education
officers (from 70 countries) in Chennai to enable them to see ABL at
work. Even China sent a team to study the system. In India, it is being
piloted across17 states. On the ground, the satisfaction is of a
different kind. Says V. Soureeswari, a teacher in the Kumaran Kottam
school. "Earlier the focus was on finishing portions.Today I go home satisfied that the children have learnt properly.''

Pupils at a night school in Tilonia, Rajasthan

BAREFOOT WISDOM

The
Social Work and Research Centre, also known as the Barefoot College,
works with underprivileged women, helping them build livelihoods within
their own communities. The college, which runs entirely on solar power,
is located in Tilonia village in Rajasthan, about 95 km from Jaipur. It
was set up in 1972 by Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy, a former national squash
champion. The name 'barefoot' was inspired by a programme in China,
where rural villagers were trained as health workers in the 1960s to
assist their own communities. The institution is now administered by the
villagers of Tilonia. Over the last four decades it has trained three
million women, helping them become school teachers, midwives, health
workers, solar engineers, computer instructors and accountants, among
other things.

Apart from Indian women, scores of women from
Sub-Saharan Africa and South America have trained at the college over
the years. In India, the model has been replicated across 14 states. The
later initiatives were all taken by people who trained at the Barefoot
College.
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